Author Topic: Fave Books / Currently Reading  (Read 947375 times)

Dorvid Barnas

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Re: Fave Books / Currently Reading
« Reply #45 on: April 20, 2007, 03:11:52 PM »
Always several years late to the book party, I just this year read these.  Loved them all.

Jeffrey Eugenides - Middlesex

J.S. Foer - Incredibly Loud and Extremely Close
             - Everything is Illuminated*

Mike Daisey - 21 Dog Years
                 
*great book, awful movie

Sarah

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Re: Fave Books / Currently Reading
« Reply #46 on: April 20, 2007, 03:27:27 PM »
             - Everything is Illuminated*

*great book, awful movie

But it was awfully quiet, so I found it to be a fine backdrop to a nap.

zonny the nun

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Re: Fave Books / Currently Reading
« Reply #47 on: April 20, 2007, 04:25:28 PM »
Did you ever go see Ames do his "Octopussy" show?

I did not. It must have been fun. I did see one of the recent variety shows he's put on with Moby.

zonny the nun

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Re: Fave Books / Currently Reading
« Reply #48 on: April 20, 2007, 04:34:22 PM »
I love Wodehouse, and Waugh and all that jazz.

Should I read that Ames book?

It's very funny but not Wodehouse-esque aside from borrowing the Jeeves character. Have you read Sarah Caudwell?

zonny the nun

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Re: Fave Books / Currently Reading
« Reply #49 on: April 20, 2007, 04:47:22 PM »
Shamela/Joseph Andrews--Henry Fielding

My box turtle's name is Shamela.

Jason

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Re: Fave Books / Currently Reading
« Reply #50 on: April 20, 2007, 05:09:12 PM »
Sarah, I never read either of them. I like the wacky, zany, zippy stuff from the 20s through 40s.
I was up to about book 5 in the 12 book A Dance to the Music of Time series by Anthony Powell, a real hoot.
I guess the US equivalents that float my boat would be Ring Lardner, Nathaniel West and someone else I can't remember.

Sarah

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Re: Fave Books / Currently Reading
« Reply #51 on: April 20, 2007, 06:17:19 PM »
I like the wacky, zany, zippy stuff from the 20s through 40s.

Well, no Trollope, then.  But you might enjoy some Maugham.  He can be nicely cynical, and I remember finding some of his stuff fun.  A tad sentimental, perhaps, but not always.

Rainer

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Re: Fave Books / Currently Reading
« Reply #52 on: April 20, 2007, 11:22:52 PM »
Let's keep this thread floating, floating, flloating out to sea ... we'll catch up to our selves on the other side.

Anybody read Robert Musil's unfinished "The Man Without Qualities"?  Your opinion?

John E. Woods' translations of Buddenbrooks and The Magic Mountain kind of give me that same special something that Musil provides --- the translations are worlds away from the text-book versions most libraries keep on the shelves.  The downside of visual Musil is that he is almost a dead-ringer for Weiner Cheney.

Musil is a paella of psychological / historical / spiritual / philosophical / political prose. If that makes your mouth water, check out his stuff.



Martin

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Re: Fave Books / Currently Reading
« Reply #53 on: April 22, 2007, 03:59:49 AM »
I am usually a horrible reader, but the last couple of weeks I've picked up a whole bunch of books for no apparent reason. I hope to turn at least some of them into reviews:

Blackwater by Jeremy Scahill (really excited/terrified about this one!)
Faking It: The Quest for Authenticity in Popular Music by Barker/Taylor (the TSOYA interview peaked my interest)
Fiasco: A History of Hollywood's Iconic Flops by James Robert Parish (populist but pretty entertaining)

Also, a ton of stuff with titles like Political Film: The Dialectics of Third Cinema; British Cinema in the Fifties: Gendre, Genre and the New Look; Animation and America and Sundance to Sarajevo: Film Festivals and the World They Made...

Haven't read any fiction in ages... latest was probably some James Lee Burke novel.

Fido

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Re: Fave Books / Currently Reading
« Reply #54 on: April 22, 2007, 08:41:44 PM »
We Tell Ourselves Stories In Order to Live, collected nonfiction of Joan Didion
-- Miami
-- Political Fictions
I'm pretty late to the Joan Didion party, and I can't say that I was too impressed by "Play As It Lays," but I had pretty high expectations.  Her book "The Year of Magical Thinking" got me a lot more interested in her nonfiction stuff.  I couldn't put Miami and Political Fictions down.  (Interestingly, when she was young, Didion was quite the Goldwater Conservative, but has drifted toward the left politically over the years.)

The Long Tail:  Why the Future of Business is Selling Less of More, by Chris Anderson.  Interesting, not the kind of book I usually read.

I just picked up Night Life, by Laurie Anderson, a fine book of illustrations with very short narrative descriptions.  In an introduction to the book, she writes:  "In 2005, I was on tour traveling alone and performing a solo show "The End of the Moon."  Over many months my dreams gradually became extremely vivid and relentless:  headless singing squirrels, cavernous spaces, disasters, a series of unstoppable stories.  I began to draw my dreams literally out of self-defense."  This book really inspires me to pull out my sketch pad and get to work.   I also just noticed -- the book is dedicated "to Lou." 

Rainer

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Re: Fave Books / Currently Reading
« Reply #55 on: April 22, 2007, 09:09:36 PM »
Quote
I also just noticed -- the book is dedicated "to Lou." 

My old boss.  I was his personal assistant from 1990 to 93.

Jason

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Re: Fave Books / Currently Reading
« Reply #56 on: April 22, 2007, 09:41:38 PM »
Quote
I also just noticed -- the book is dedicated "to Lou." 

My old boss.  I was his personal assistant from 1990 to 93.

Really?

Rainer

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Re: Fave Books / Currently Reading
« Reply #57 on: April 22, 2007, 09:43:08 PM »
Indeed.  My salad days, huffing it up to Barney Greengrass to get Lou a Bagel with Nova.

Rainer

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Re: Fave Books / Currently Reading
« Reply #58 on: April 22, 2007, 10:39:30 PM »
Quote
J.S. Foer - Incredibly Loud and Extremely Close

OK, now I am going to definitely read this book.  You and an old college friend have both recommended it ...

Josh

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Re: Fave Books / Currently Reading
« Reply #59 on: April 22, 2007, 10:58:09 PM »
Quote
J.S. Foer - Incredibly Loud and Extremely Close

OK, now I am going to definitely read this book.  You and an old college friend have both recommended it ...
Ooh I really really liked that too!
"Alright, well, for the sake of this conversation, let's say the book does not exist."